Warmth

I was going to write about this before I saw the data today. I was think just yesterday that the weather feels more like June than April. Aprils when I was in the UK in the early 90s were nothing like this. Even when I moved here at the turn of the millenium, they weren’t this warm.

In fact, this is going to be the warmest April since records began in 1659. It seems like the temperature has been more than the 3.4 degrees Celcius above normal indicated by the Met Office.

The downside to this warmth seems to be the sunshine associated with it. It’s been warm and dry all over Europe. While this has been good for businesses like sidewalk cafes, it’s not been so good for crops. There are already signs of drought. It is already evident in Hungary, where April temperatures were 5-6 degrees above normal. We may even be headed for a repeat of last year’s summer heat wave.

The UK is not headed for the same drought conditions as the continent, because whilst the temperatures were quite moderate, we had a rather wet winter.

Of course news like this brings the global warming crowd out. They want to attribute all of this to anthropogenic sources. What they don’t like to tell you is that even though this is the warmest April on record it’s not that much hotter than some other times on record. It may be 3.4 degrees above normal, but it is only 0.5 degrees above the average in 1865.

These this come and go in cycles. Rather than trying to place blame with whatever capitalist enterprise most irritates the left-wing loony ideology of the global warming activists, more should be invested in predicting the cycles and planning for them.

2 Responses to Warmth

As I understand it, during the Medieval Warm Period not only did people in your part of the world go on a cathedral building spree, but they kept planting grapes as far north as they could manage to keep them alive. And I don’t think they ate them fresh.

On the other side of that, during the Little Ice Age, when the Thames froze solid people took advantage of it and held fairs on top of the river.